Komusō

Common card · No. 242405

In the Japanese language, the term and title komusō (虚無僧, (Eng.-lang. trans.:) "priest[s] of nothingness", "monk[s] of emptiness") is a compound noun used to refer to, and the primary name for, an historical group, as well as individual and collective members of said group, of itinerant (typically wandering, such as after the manner of Japanese unsui or angya-sō, or as in the probationary period of tangaryō) and—despite the word "komusō", by linguistic definition, being a zero-plural endocentric subordinative compound containing the head morpheme "monk" or "priest"—non-monastic, and often also non-ordained, lay Buddhists from the warrior-class (samurai and rōnin) of early modern Japan noted for wearing straw, basket-like hats called tengai (天蓋) and playing the shakuhachi (尺八) bamboo flute. The latter is notorious as a practice of the komusō performed especially, or as traditionally claimed, for spiritual reasons, as part of broader Zen practices, a Buddhist religious discipline particular...

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